Missouri Department of Transportation

After a scathing audit in 2016, we check in on Kansas City's bike plan. How have things changed since the audit? What lays ahead for bicycle infrastructure in Kansas City? And how do we compare to other Midwestern cities?

The speed limit on U.S. Route 71 just north of the Grandview Triangle increases this week to 65 miles per hour.

Currently, the posted speed limit from a half mile south of 75th Street to 3-Trails Crossing is 55, but most drivers tend to go faster, says Derek Olson, a district traffic engineer for the Missouri Department of Transportation.

The Kansas City Area Transportation Authority is launching an app next week to help people with disabilities get a ride. The launch follows a year of development and two months of trials in a partnership with the company Transdev.

Anyone can use the RideKC Freedom app, but it’s specially designed for the more than 300,000 people with disabilities who use the KCATA’s subsidized paratransit services. CEO Robbie Makinen says the Uber-style app is an innovation for the public transit agency.

When Kansas Citian Eric Bunch puts his 5-year-old son on the back of his bike to take him to daycare every morning, he has to cross the fast-moving traffic on 39th Street, where there are no traffic signals.

Kansas City Chief Innovation officer Bob Bennett would incorporate autonomous vehicles into public transportation, enable your car to connect with other vehicles, and create a “smart” Prospect bus line that’s Wi-Fi enabled and can sense what’s going on around it.

The Missouri legislative session is already underway in Jefferson City. On this week's Statehouse Blend, we discuss the most important issues for the 2016 assembly, and speculate on the outcomes. We're talking ethics reform, guns, and transportation. This is an excerpt from Statehouse Blend. You can listen to the full episode here, or by subscribing on iTunes.

The Missouri legislative session is already underway in Jefferson City. On this week's Statehouse Blend, we discuss the most important issues for the 2016 assembly, and speculate on the outcomes. We're talking ethics reform, guns, and transportation.

It's a big week for the Broadway Bridge – expect lane closures and delays as inspectors check the safety of the 60-year-old structure.

“The paint looks OK on Broadway, but when you really get in your bucket truck and you hang over the edge and start looking underneath, there is a lot of deterioration, a lot of areas — they call it section loss,” says Brian Kidwell, assistant Kansas City district engineer for the Missouri Department of Transportation.

Two years ago, inspectors found problems — big ones — that necessitated closing the bridge for repairs.

A long-awaited bike trail spanning most of Missouri from east to west could be endangered by a pending transportation budget bill.

The measure introduced last week, House Resolution 2609, would eliminate the Department of Transportation’s Transportation Alternatives Program (TAP), which provides funding to states for recreational trails, community improvement activities and safe routes to school, among other programs.

The Missouri Department of Transportation’s move to reimagine Interstate 70 as the “road to tomorrow” raises more questions than it answers about the state’s central transit corridor.

“We’re making Interstate 70 across the midsection of our state available to the nation and to the world as the laboratory to construct the next generation of highways,” Missouri Highways and Transportation Commission Chairman Stephen Miller announced Wednesday.

Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon stopped by the recently closed Missouri River bridge on Highway 291 in Sugar Creek, Missouri Thursday to call on state lawmakers to pass a fuel tax hike for transportation funding.

The northbound bridge was closed Wedensday when a Missouri Department of Transportation inspection found a rusted hole through a support strut.

Nixon said the bridge is indicative of a larger problem with state transportation funding.

The Missouri Department of Transportation just released its 20-year plan for the state’s roads and bridges. MoDOT expects it will have about $17 billion dollars to pay for the plan. However, if it completed all the maintenance and construction suggested by Missouri citizens in a recent survey, it would need a budget of $70 billion.

On Wednesday's Up to Date, we talk about the plan and how the state will prioritize its future projects.

So imagine you’ve got a budget for home improvements. You’ve pared it down to the bare bones. You know exactly how much you can afford and you won’t spend any more than that. Now cut that budget in half. What things do you leave behind? And what are your top priorities?

This exact situation is happening to the Missouri Department of Transportation. With their budget being slashed to just about half, MoDOT is preparing to enter maintenance mode.

A group of Republicans in the Missouri Senate has blocked a proposed constitutional amendment that would create a one-cent sales tax to help fund the state’s transportation needs.

The tax would require voter approval and would expire after 10 years unless voters renew it. Five percent of revenues raised would be designated for cities and another five percent for counties to pay for local transportation needs. Those factors were not enough to sway several Republicans, including Rob Schaaf of St. Joseph, who conducted a filibuster Tuesday night.